The government is reportedly revising the terms and conditions of the deep-sea fishing policy, approved by General Pervez Musharraf (Retd) as Chief Executive in 2001 as the amended policy did not yield desired results, official sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday.
Musharraf government had approved a "buffer zone" of eight nautical miles, between 12 and 20 nautical miles from the coastline, aimed at providing exclusive fishing rights to small-scale fishermen in the specified area. "We have recommended that royalty and licence fee should be reverted to the position of 1995 policy, besides declaring the Federal area between 12-20 nautical miles (buffer zone) as Zone-II and from 20 to 200 nautical miles as Zone-III.
The main reasons for the failure of Musharraf-backed deep-sea fishing policy are poor response from foreign vessel operators due to high royalty, licence fee etc as compared to neighbouring countries, unprecedented increase in the price of fuel, sizeable reduction in the annual foreign exchange earning from Rs 80 million to Rs 40 million, reduction in other government revenues from Rs 90 million to Rs 37 million annually and considerable decrease in the annual fish landings from 15,000 metric tonnes to 3,000 metric tonnes from the Federal waters due to fishing by low number of vessels.
The sources said the Inter-Ministerial Scrutiny Committee (IMSC), comprising the representatives of the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Port and Shipping and other stakeholders, including Sindh and Balochistan, were of the unanimous view that the amended deep-sea fishing policy had not given tangible results and it should be revised.
The IMSC had also taken into consideration that the royalty and licence fee prevailing in the neighbouring countries were much less as compared to the fees being charged by the government of Pakistan, said the sources.
"We have proposed changes in the deep-sea fishing policy that would bridge the yield gap through increasing productivity, increasing investment, increasing foreign exchange, rationalising fee structures vis-à-vis neighbouring countries, thus achieving economic growth, increasing fishing vessels operations in Zone-III with increase in the landed catch at Korangi Fish Harbour," said an official of the Ministry of Livestock.
According to the prevalent policy, fishing in Zone-I is exclusively reserved for traditional small-scale fishermen of Sindh and Balochistan provinces, while 100-250 Gross Registered Tonnage (GRT) medium size vessels have been allowed to fish in Zone-II, and 300-500 GRT stern trawlers/300-l000 GRT long liners for industrial fishing in Zone-III under licences issued by the then Minfal (now Minfa). The small-scale fishing vessels, though limited by their capability and capacity, are free to fish beyond Zone-I limits.